actually humans have been getting smarter according to IQ tests... which are measured on a curve

I've never seen a giant who hasn't showered for a week laying on the couch watching Superbowl reruns, eating mammoth cheese-cheetoes, and drinking Lucky Lager. Or maybe what they do is their version of that.

They are particulary smart for first killing my horse, so I have to spend 1000 gold evrytime I meet a giant.

I actually did find a Giant that I could approach just outside of whiterun but I couldn't talk to him. I also remember reading a wiki page about one that you can trade with but I don't recall his name.

Says who, everything I've seen has said there is NO difference between early humans and modern humans.

Also IQ tests have existed for maybe 100 years and people have certainly not become smarted in that period.

So all in all, you're hauling that stuff out of your behind.

I wish Bethesda would do some small kinda DLC where we'd run into a clan of actually intelligent giants (not genius, but they're chieftain would be on par with Balgruuf). They're at war with an Orcish mercenary tribe that hunts them. When we finish (or along the way), the giants welcome us as one of them. We can trade (news armor and weapons ftw, Troll-bone please!).

But ya, that's what I'd like to see. As far as the ones you see roaming the plains, they obviously have a culture. Those carvings on the mammoths' tusks, the gold paint and cool designs all over their camps. They're not sophisticated, but they certainly have a modicum of intelligence. As said before, most likely that of a caveman if not a few IQ points higher.

There's no difference in brain size, that's for sure. Also I don't believe we can measure intelligence by just how much one knows. I believe we modern humans lost some very important arts and practices perfected by our ancestors.

Nope I got the info from QI.... Its a very good and accurate Quiz show... and we have definitely got smarter since the stone age, but off topic really

Then surely that's not a lack of intellect on their behalf... No offence of course.

Maybe that's why they have the mammoths.

*ducks*

Actually if you meet giants walking around they are friendly.
If you go into their camps though.

i went into their camps and stayed there for a few seconds. They wont harm you even if you go as close as the campfire. But u must never raise your weapon!
if u do.............soverngarde awaits u

Well they seem to be able to craft simple structures, weapons and tools. They know how to domesticate mammoths and use them for food and resources. They also seem to have some form of communication, weather it be through speech or writing (rocks near there camps seem to have primitive writing, and symbols on their body could represent social status or something along those lines). They also seem to work together with other giants to guard a camp, and their mammoths. I'd say they are fairly intelligent as far as a primitive species might go.

I have to wonder if they are some form of Mer though, they have pointy ears, and look like they live long lives. Normally even a primitive race that can do all these things would live a life span of 20-30 years, while giants seem well aged.

Men and Giants share a common ancestor. When the Ehlnofey split into the ancestors of men and mer, the ancestors of men were huge in comparison. At some point, the giants split from men, but the name "dwarves" was coined by the ancestors of both, not by the giants who remain alive today.

Giants do have a language. In TES II: Daggerfall, "Giantish" was one of the language skills. Also, if you have sub titles on in Skyrim, while fighting a Giant you may see them say something, it starts out with "Ayarg ...", that's all i can remember of it.

Agreed. Plus they seem to have artistic concepts. They are clearly a sentient, sapient race, albeit a primitive one - which seems to work fine for them.

I would like a great deal for some giant content. I love seeing them in the game, I never kill or mess with them since they happily mind their own business - seriously, giants, despite their size and strength, are practically the least threatening race in game, and are pretty friendly too - and they do shout warnings when they don't want you about (in their camps). If people are saying "well, they aren't very clear warnings so they aren't very smart" I have to wonder about that players smarts - giant yells angrily at me... hmmm, what could it mean? Oh well, I'll continue to approach...

Humans, Mer etc are the ones up in each others faces and all that.

Ah, but to to be able to work out how to communicate with the giants somehow, maybe help them. Maybe have the option to stab any fat Nord who gives me a quest to collect a giants toe multiple time. And then take that Nord's toes and feed them to the foxes, as a warning to others - this Dragonborn is a friend of the giants.


Only if you compare them with the outdated view of neanderthals (like way outdated, and becoming more so with each year and archeological discovery).

Plus they do have language.

And not really sure what about giants is inherently "stupid". Primitive doesn't equal stupid (compare with, say, the Troll in the first Harry Potter film).

They live in the sky with the females, occasionally they drop down more mammoths for their fathers to herd.

You know nothing of the Neanderthals. They had language (scientific discoveries even suggest that our species may have inherited the gene which allows our own language from the Neanderthals... who we are, by the way, descendants of if we do not have purely African genetic heritage) and were certainly not brutish or stupid. Stupid stereotypes undermining all factual knowledge of biological anthropology...

Not only they have ordinary intelligence but they're fashion aware apparently, wearing jewelery made of the bones of their victims.

One of the notes somewhere included a warning to travelers that the giant at that particular camp has been parleyed with, and travelers should not gawk, attempt to trade or rest near his camp. or something.

It may suggest ceremonial recognition and certainly creativity, a rather advanced mental faculty.

Or perhaps there is little sixual dimorphism in giants.

LOL, yes, exactly! And thanks for that mental image of the butt scratching and kneeding... I'm skipping lunch now!